Super Bowl 2025: The 5 Best And 5 Worst Commercials

Every year, the world pauses to watch two teams grapple it out for the top of the NFL heap. The Super Bowl is, and likely will always be, event TV — from the star-studded halftime show to the game itself. It's also that rare program that keeps people tuned in between plays because every year, advertisers spend millions rolling out new commercials to catch viewer's eyes, even though they can't actually say the phrase "Super Bowl" in the ads. 

This year's ads, as usual, will feature megawatt reunions, touching stories of triumph, and outrageous ventures in marketing. Famous singers and actors will be there. There will be serious messages and well-meaning laughs. From new movies debuting their first-look trailers to familiar products calling in the big guns to hawk everything from soda to insurance, it will be a wild Sunday night for fans of the sport and lovers of pop culture worldwide. It's also become traditional to release at least some of the commercials before the big game, but which ones are the cream of the crop — and which ones are disappointing? Here are the five best and five worst commercials that aired on the big game.

Bud Light is well known for its party-hearty ads, but for some reason its Post Malone and Shane Gillis-centered Super Bowl spot is a bit of a letdown. Sure, the spirit and the mayhem are there, but there's no punch to it, and nothing to either make you feel rowdy or thrilled. The funny thing is that Budweiser's other commercials this year — including a pun-laden Sloth ad and another outing with its famous Clydesdales — hit it out of the park, but their third time using Malone provides no pizzazz. 

It's not that they don't try, with a smoker loaded with Bud and steaks, backyard parties, and Malone and Gillis sending bottles of brew across the neighborhood via a T-shirt canon held about hip-high. But Spuds MacKenzie they ain't, though the commercial is a callback to that free and easy world, minus the babes in bikinis and surfer dudes. It hits the bottom of the list because we know Budweiser can do better, that Malone and Gillis can do better, and that both will in the future.  

It's always nice to see the Muppets resurface, whether it be for a Christmas special or in a simple ad like this. Promoting Booking.com, it shows Miss Piggy, Kermit, Statler, Waldorf, and Gonzo each searching for the perfect vacation homes and finding them thanks to the app. Kermit's happy on the beach, while Gonzo jets off into the wild blue and Waldorf and Statler just want to cancel their reservations. 

A few human characters do show up — a family horrified by a mirrored ceiling, and a bridal party horrified by the family's existence — but all of the commercial's attention falls mainly on the Muppets, as it should, resulting in a delightful and joyful romp. It makes you want to escape on your own vacation and does its job in selling the app — which is all a good Super Bowl commercial needs to do. 

Dunkin' Donuts has hit many a Super Bowl commercial homer out of the park, including a multi-year campaign in which Ben Affleck worked their drive-through as a coffee-slinging pitchman. He's there alongside fellow Boston natives Jeremy Strong and brother Casey Affleck for the company's latest campaign, but this time with a reference to Strong's fondness for Method acting. To wit: the Affleck brothers find him soaking in a big tub of Dunkin's famous coffee beans to better understand the product. Unfortunately, the wet, mushy beans don't really look like coffee. While a zoned-out Strong proclaims his love for the brand, the Afflecks become concerned, to say the least. 

Is the commercial funny? Kind of, as it tweaks Method acting and manages to let you know a little more about Strong. But is that negated by how gross it looks? Very much so, which means it doesn't successfully pitch its product to the consumer. Perhaps the full-length version of the ad will shed a little more light on the concept but as of right now, this is definitely an unfortunate miss.

The best Super Bowl commercials play with audience expectations and turn them upside down in a fun way. Totino's does this with the adventures of the kiddie-pleasing mascot Chazmo, who is ready to head back to his home planet after forging a set of touching relationships with a set of kids. But just as the kids finish saying goodbye to him, two of their dads — played by actors Tim Robinson and Sam Richardson — emerge to complain that Chazmo has never acknowledged them. On top of that, he's crashed on their couch and eaten all their snacks, and they want compensation. 

Chazmo, of course, is wise to their ways, and declares that Totino's don't cost a lot of money. The decide to wreak havoc by destroying his ship, and then learn a deep dark secret about their alien friend. This is the right kind of silly-doofy humor, with a wink and a poke to the ribs for "E.T." fans. Definitely a highlight among the many snack commercials on display.

This one doesn't work simply because the characters in it are too foolish to be believed. Selling Reese's Lava Peanut Butter Cups, it sees a gaggle of people trying to enthusiastically throw themselves into a volcano to eat the (glowing, bright orange) lava being pumped out of the crater. It somehow reminds them of the layer of chocolate goo that's actually in the Reese's Lava Peanut Butter Cup, so they apparently can't resist it.

The big problem, of course, is that the bright, golden shiny lava these folks are trying to burn themselves with doesn't look at all like the chocolate that comes out of those cups. The cooling black rock stuff on the ground definitely resembles it more than the actual lava they're trying to eat. It's one of those commercials where the concept ought to be funny, but it just makes the characters in it look nonsensical instead of truly engaged by the product.

Budweiser can always be relied upon to bring audiences another one of their sentimental and gently humorous Clydesdale commercials every year, and they've done another outstanding job in 2025.

The ad features a pony who's too young to make a beer delivery into town, per his owner's estimation. Left to mope back on the ranch, he notes that one of the kegs has fallen off the truck and rolled into the dirt road in front of him. To the strains of "Let Your Love Flow," the colt then transverses the bucolic distance between them, facing a whole lot of seemingly unpassable obstacles before reuniting with his team and delivering his bounty. The horse finally proves he's big and mature enough to take part in these long journeys. It's a simple, sweet, and touching ad about an equine coming of age, and it's worthy of all of the pony-obsessed ads which came before it. 

This one's a double-whammy of bad: while it's only a teaser, it does a poor job of letting you know what they're trying to sell (appliances — in this case, a refrigerator) and how in the world a suddenly-resurrected Randy Savage fits in with fellow pitchman Antonio Banderas. Unless you know that Bosch sells appliances, your attention is on Banderas easily opening the pickle jar, not on the refrigerator in the background. Audiences would not be wrong if they mistook this for a Vlasic ad instead of one for kitchenware.

Randy Savage has been dead for over 10 years, so it's odd that he's been resurrected this way, with an actor who doesn't sound like him and barely looks like him. But at least it's easy to tell who he's supposed to be. The way the commercial stacks up all of these elements doesn't make you excited to see the actual commercial on game day — it just leaves you wondering what on Earth you're looking at. The full ad might save it, but for now it's just a waste of the audience's time. 

Gordon Ramsey, Pete Davidson and all-clad cooking pans shouldn't combine to make such a fun, interesting ad — yet for this year's Super Bowl there's a whole lot of joy to be had in their alientastic campaign. 

The commercial sees Ramsey being herded into Area 51, where he's tasked with cooking for visitors from space and learns that HexClad's pans are made of material taken from spaceships. He's quickly told it's time to meet the alien ambassador — which turns out to be Pete Davidson, who nonchalantly reveals his extra-terrestrial origins to a bemused Ramsey. 

"All famous people are aliens," Davidson declares, but when Ramsey says that he isn't one, Davidson corrects himself: "I meant, like, really famous people." The end product is fun, fast-paced, and good enough to make you wonder what all the hype is about regarding the pans' quality. Ramsey also acquits himself with humor and panache as an actor. Can "My Big Fat Hell's Kitchen" be too far away?

One doesn't think of rolling fields of wheat, mom-and-pop shops and family medical practices when one thinks of AI, but Google aims to change that with its Super Bowl ad. The spot sells the company's Gemini engine as something useful for small businesses and those living in small, rural towns. But the commercial ignores a simple, sticky point — AI has the potential to be more expensive for small businesses, and naturally harms other independent industries, such as web design businesses, commercial illustrators, and translation assistants that would be consulted if the engine didn't exist. 

Google, to its credit, seems to be very aware that people have their qualms about AI, and specifically what Google's use of the technology might mean for the world. But cloaking the entire process in a sheen of patriotic small-town Americana ignores its large-scale flaws, causing the entire enterprise to come off as simplistic. 

Some might call it the cheapening of a legacy, but it got "When Harry Met Sally..." streaming on Paramount+, so sometimes a Super Bowl commercial can do a whole lot of good. This Hellmann's ad takes Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) and Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) back to the deli where Sally had her infamous moment of loud, public pleasure back in the 1980s. Harry notes that he's shocked they let them back in there. When Sally takes umbrage to a bad sandwich, a layer of Hellmann's really gets her going once again — to the point where Harry remarks, "I'm competing with a condiment." Sydney Sweeney closes the whole ad with a cheerful callback to the movie: "I'll have what she's having."

It's a quick, funny shot of nostalgia that makes you laugh, and it makes sandwich spread look incredibly appealing. That makes it the best ad of the Super Bowl — and something worth moaning about.